Earlier this year, some friends mentioned to me that they were going to do a “stage race” version of the Rockstar Trail, a local point-to-point ultra endurance event, during the grand depart in April. I was intrigued, mostly because the fact that the Rockstar route starts in Harrisonburg and finishes in Roanoke with 270 miles of epic singletrack in between just sounds cool, but there is no way I want to load down my bike with all kinds of camping gear and then ride those trails. Supported, four days, with a group of friends… that sounds reasonable.

Fast forward to two weeks before Saturday’s grand depart. The group of 12+ people who had originally said they were interested in the 4-day supported version had fallen to a small handful. I also was looking at the races scheduled for the weekend following Rockstar and more than a little worried about the lack of recovery between events. So I called my friend Cameron.

What would it take for me to do Rockstar self-supported?

Cameron has done Rockstar Trail (along with Colorado Trail and other epic bikepacking feats), and we’ve also ridden together, so I knew he’d have a good sense of whether this was completely insane, or possibly feasible.

He ended up loaning me his spot tracker, as well as a feed bag for my bike. But I still didn’t want to load my bike down, so kept things slim: food, lights, battery packs, a lightweight jacket, a spare tube (because Cameron insisted), water, a water filter, and an emergency bivy (another of Cameron’s suggestions–which I’m SO GLAD I heeded). In total, I had an Evoc fanny pack, an Osprey running hydration vest, 2 bottles, a small top tube bag, a small handlebar roll bag, and the feed bag from Cameron, plus the tube/flat repair strapped to my bike. Even with just that, when I did a shakeout ride a few days before the event, I could feel the weight difference, but felt like it would be manageable while going full-send on every descent I could.

Leading up to the event, a number of people asked me two things:

1. Where is your gear?
2. What are your goals?

To the first question, see above. Yes, that’s it. I chose not to take a full sleeping kit mostly because of my aversion to weighing down my mountain bike, but also partially because I was legitimately a little nervous to sleep outside in the woods by myself. When I think about it, that doesn’t make a ton of sense, because I’ve walked through cities all over the world by myself at night (objectively more dangerous than sleeping in the woods in the middle of a National Forest), I’ve hiked and mountain biked alone in the woods at night, and generally don’t consider myself afraid of the outdoors. But still. My “plan” as it were (which I would later realize was severely delusional) was to ride the first 155 miles to Covington and get a hotel there. Ha.

The second question was a bit more complicated. Really, I didn’t know. I didn’t even know if I wanted to finish. I wanted to start…and see what I could do. That was about all I had. I had done enough research to know that the standing women’s FKT was somewhere around 67 hours, which I used more for informational purposes than goal-setting. I figured that if the FKT was 67 hours, then it would likely take me significantly longer than that. My conversations with Cameron and Kayla (another friend also attempting Rockstar Trail) debated whether it would take more, or less, than 30 hours to get to Covington. I had no concept of pace or timing for this kind of event.

Up until this weekend, I had never bike packed, never ridden a mountain bike more than 80 miles, and didn’t really even know if I could.

So that left me with one option: stay curious.

This has been one of my mantras for awhile now, and something I’ve been leaning more and more into through the shoulder surgery and recovery (also, I realized as I was riding yesterday, that 8 weeks ago, I wasn’t even allowed to ride a mountain bike!!). Starting the event, I gave myself every excuse (and opportunity) to quit. I had 4-5 people in Roanoke who had promised to keep their phones on in case I needed a ride home, and a multitude of items listed out that would cause me to quit (ie., a flat that I couldn’t just plug, getting wet or cold or both, not having fun anymore, etc.). But I also talked with my coach about what it would take to do essentially four XCM events back-to-back-to-back and agreed on a HR cap for the first day that would hopefully keep me from going out too hard and blowing up. I also knew that this would be even more of an eating contest than my “normal” of XCM racing. If I was going to be able to ride 270 miles, I would need to be able to keep eating and drinking, and I would need to keep my pace steady from the very start.

Other than that, it was simply: “What could happen if…?”

When Kayla and I rode to the start, at Black Sheep Coffee in Harrisonburg, VA on Saturday morning, it was misting rain, and the antibiotic I’m on for a persistent saddle sore was continuing to make me nauseous One of my first excuses to quit was if it rained. But I felt like I had to at least start. “What could happen if I start…and then I’ll either get cold and quit, or get warm and keep riding.”

So I started.

That first ~70 miles to the West Augusta General store was all in what I termed “the familiar.” These were roads and trails I knew, and within a distance I’d ridden before. I had no questions about whether I could get to the first resupply–I’ve done enough XCM events now to be confident in knowing I can race 100k, and if I can race it, I could definitely ride it. Keeping my HR below my set cap meant riding at what felt like a ridiculously easy pace, and getting off my bike and walking on climbs that I otherwise would have tried to pedal through.

Really, the highlights of that first “segment” was getting to see and ride with a bunch of different friends: JB, Zach, Cindy, Leila, Jonathan, Nathan, Rouselle, etc., as the various trail, gravel, and paved versions of the Rockstar all start together. On the ride up to Reddish Knob, Nathan Salle and Jonathan Ramirez and I all fell into pace together, which made the climb super enjoyable. Jon and I ripped it down Timber and Wolf together, then met up with Nathan again at the bottom as we filtered water before starting up to Narrowback and Tillman trails. I had a blast riding with them, and in a lot of ways, it felt like we were just out for a long day ride (though I would never choose to ride up Lookout Mountain trail, just saying).

At the West Augusta store, I stocked up on water, food, and smashed 2 Vitamin Waters, a cheesburger, and potato wedges before continuing on.

This is where we enter the unknown.

As I climbed up past Braley Pond towards the Shenandoah Mountain Trail (SMT), I realized that I was entering unfamiliar territory. I was now riding trails I had never been on before, and riding further than I’d ever ridden. I didn’t know how my body would respond, or what the trails would be like. With the pending darkness and my initial hope of getting to Covington to sleep, I also didn’t know if I was capable of riding all night. I’d ridden backcountry trails in the dark before, but never all night.

By time I was nearing the end of the SMT, it was a little past 10 p.m. and I was noticeably tired. I had wanted to make it to the end of the SMT, as that was the first chance to resupply water since leaving West Augusta, nearly 30 miles earlier, and that had been slow going at times. When I saw I was getting close to the creek, I opted to pull over, unfold my emergency bivy for the first time, and crawl in for a nap. I still wanted a hotel in Covington, but knew I needed some sleep (and to rest my shoulder, which was throbbing worringly)–and now realized that my ETA to Covington was midday or later (ie., closer to 30 hours than under that). I was also getting colder, and figured it was smart to sleep where there was a climb following so that I could warm up when I got back on the bike.

I slept for a couple of hours, though as Leila later described, sleeping in a bivy is more like “laying down and shaking.” Eventually, I was too cold to attempt sleeping further, and figured the only way to get warm was to keep moving. So I got on my bike and started riding. What I didn’t expect was that it would just keep getting colder. As I alternated between pedaling and pushing my bike, I started with having to put my jacket on, then off as I warmed up, then on again, to having it on and still being cold.

At some point that night, as I was pushing through another incessant rock garden on Little Mare trail (one of only a few trails that I will never willingly ride again), I realized that even if I wanted to bail (I did), that there wasn’t even a good option for doing so. Assuming I had cell service (questionable), I was on a ~14 mile stretch of trail with no road crossings. I had to just keep going. When I finally reached the airport, up at the ridge behind Douthat State Park (or two ridges behind? Whatever…), the wind was whipping mercilessly, and the temperature on my Garmin said it was 21F. I was pedaling and shaking and squeezing my hands and feet in fruitless efforts to keep them from going entirely numb. Again, if I wanted to quit (and I did), I knew that in the time it would take someone to get to me, I would freeze. I had to keep moving.

My one hope was the campground shower house at Douthat State Park. I knew they were heated, and was desperate to get there. But as I finally got the start of the descent off of the airport ridge (I don’t know the actual name of the mountain), I went to lower my dropper seatpost, and got no response. I had extra AXS batteries with me, but couldn’t believe it had died already. Sure enough, the AXS battery on the seat post was fine, but the tiny coin cell battery in the lever was dead (or at least the lever had no response). I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t thought to check or change the lever battery before starting–or to bring extra 2032 batteries with me. This was definitely an excuse to quit–though maybe the Douthat Camp Store would have batteries?

When I got to Douthat State Park, I huddled in the shower house trying desperately to get warm. It helped a little, but as soon as I went back outside, I started shaking from cold again. There’s no service in Douthat, so I figured I just needed to keep moving. When the camp store opened, I checked for batteries to no avail, then figured I’d try to get to Covington and that hotel and cell service and a battery and maybe a ride home.

As the sun started to come up, and I started the climb out of Douthat, I was again overwhelmingly tired (and still cold), but thought that if I laid down in the sun in my bivy that maybe I’d be able to get warm enough to sleep. What no one tells you about sleeping in a bivy is that yes, you might get warm, but when you do, all your body humidity causes condensation, and then the inside of the bivy gets wet, and you get colder than you were before. I got maybe two hours more sleep, then pushed on, desperate to get to Covington.

I had hoped that the rest would have eased the growing pain in my left knee, but it continued to get worse as I pedaled towards Covington. By time I was making my way down the Peters Ridge Trail into Covington, I could barely limp along when walking, and every pedal stroke was excruciating. I knew that I’d likely had an LCL sprain from getting hit by the car back in January, and had stumbled and been pushed against some rocks at the top of Reddish early the first day, and assumed that had made the tendons/ligaments angry, only to be exacerbated by so much movement (both hike-a-bike and pedaling).

By this point, though, I realized that even though I hadn’t gone into this intending to race, I was winning. I was the in the lead of the women’s event by a handful of miles, and even with my staggeringly slow pace between Douthat and Covington thanks to the pain in my knee, was at a pace that would put me in FKT contention. Even though this started as a test of my own endurance, it only took knowing that I was winning for that competitive switch to flip in my brain. But with my knee, I didn’t know if I could finish, much less if it would be wise to try and finish. The last thing I wanted was to cause some kind of long-term injury.

When I got to Covington, I was beyond cracked. The heat and pain had gotten to me. I rode to the first gas station, got a Gatorlyte and a Liquid Death, sat on the sidewalk and called my friend (and ortho). I was nearly in tears, and essentially said: “I’d quit, but I’m winning…do you think I can even try to go on?” He suggested ibuprofen/Tylenol and to at least try it out. So I got a bottle of Tylenol at the gas station, refilled my food supply, went to McDonald’s for a cheeseburger, fries, and a milkshake, and finally found a coin cell battery at Tractor Supply.

I wasn’t sure how far I’d get, but I was ready to at least try to finish.

As I started pedaling out of Covington, I discovered that the new battery didn’t fix my dropper lever issue. Either the battery I’d bought was already dead (possible) or something was wrong with the lever itself, but had no signal even with the new battery. For some reason, though I knew that this would make some of the trails ahead challenging, I kept on pedaling. The mega-dose of Tylenol had lessened my knee pain significantly, and the milkshake / Red Bull / cheeseburger combo brought me back to life.

Plus, I was back in the “known.”

Sure, I was now far outside the known in terms of distance ridden, but for the most part, the trails between Covington and Roanoke are trails I’m familiar with. First stop, Roaring Run. I’d ridden about half of the Iron Ore trail before (where it is a connector for the Hoop Hole loop), though as I pedaled into twilight, I realized it was far more challenging with a high seat post and that I was very tired.

Afraid of getting too cold overnight again, I chose to sleep early, shaking out my bivy in the parking area at the end of Hoop Hole, around 8 p.m. Eventually, around midnight, despite being still tired, I was too cold (and wet, thanks to the condensation inside the bivy) to attempt any further readjustments of my body to preserve body temperature, so got up and continued riding. I knew now that I had to just keep moving in order to stay warm.

On my top tube, I had written a list of water resupply stops and their mile markers, as well as the start of any trail segment. Somewhere between Roaring Run and Price Mountain, there was supposed to be a church (and, in theory, a water spigot). The mile marker I had listed came and went, and in the dark, I never saw a church. As the gravel road I was on climbed higher and higher and we got closer and closer to the mile marker for the start of Price Mountain trail, I was exceptionally afraid I had made a grave error in not filtering water at Roaring Run. Fortunately, just before starting the trail, the road crossed a creek and I was able to fill up on water before the long hike-a-bike that is Price Mountain trail.

Honestly, there were sections of Price Mountain that were super fun. But it was also the hardest trail to follow in the dark that I’ve ever ridden. I feel like I’ve ridden enough backcountry (both in the daylight and at night) that I’m usually able to see or at least sense the direction of a trail. This was different. There were long sections where it was ~2 feet deep in leaves, and at least twice where I pulled up Trailforks on my phone desperately trying to discern which way the trail was going. Price Mountain was also one of several moments that I desperately wished Jon were still out in front of me (I’d gotten word that he had dropped in Covington) so that someone else could have forged a way through the leaves.

When I finally reached the bottom of Price Mountain, I was mentally and physically exhausted. The combination of high-posted descending and/or manually lowering my seatpost, then having to stand and pedal for any transition (which was excruciatingly painful with my knee) was wearing on me. Still, I felt the tug of “I’m almost there.” I just had trails I knew ahead.

Well, kind of. Between Price Mountain and North Mountain there is a trail that is labeled as a “road” on the map. Or I assumed it was a road when I saw it on the map at least. It’s windy and relatively flowy and easy in comparison to the other trails we’d ridden…but slower going than a road would have been. At about 5 a.m., an hour before I figured it was safe to take another megadose of Tylenol, I found a spot out of the wind and laid down, thinking that I’d be able to move faster once I had some pain meds back in my system and my knee was hurting less.

I slept for about an hour, then as my frozen body and exhausted brain attempted to process what I needed to do (take prescription, take Tylenol, eat, filter water, etc.) I started riding, then stopped, about 5 times in less than a mile. Thanks to the prescription, I never really had an appetite, but now it was really gone. But I knew I’d need food in my system to tackle Dragon’s Back (North Mountain), so force fed myself, and resolved to make sure I ate at least every hour for the rest of the day.

By time I finally climbed up to the top of North Mountain and began the ridge traverse, I was actually feeling surprisingly good. The Tylenol had kicked in again and my knee was functioning, my legs otherwise felt decent, and I was in familiar territory and “close” to home. The lack of a dropper made it feel a bit sketchier than usual, but I was on a high from the gorgeous morning on a truly great trail.

I’d been texting back and forth with Cameron throughout the morning, as I took breaks at various places along the ridge of North Mountain. Between Trackleaders and his updates, I realized that I was on course to not only set a new FKT, but also win the overall. There were two riders relatively close to me, so I couldn’t just dawdle, but if I was able to keep moving, I’d have it.

When I dropped down to the Catawba Grocery on 311, with that in mind, and every competitive bone in my body amped, I force fed myself some pizza, an ice cream bar, a Gatorlyte, and a Red Bull, restocked my bags with food that I knew I’d need but really didn’t want, and started towards home.

Looking back, I probably spent a few too many matches on North Mountain, and possibly on that first climb up Hi-Dee-Ho at Carvin’s. By time I got to Trough, I was struggling, and had to walk almost the entire thing. The heat was exacerbating my fatigue, and my knee was screaming at me, despite the recent does of Tylenol. I kept telling myself to just keep moving forward, and counting down the miles to go on my Garmin.

I stopped at the Orange Market for another Red Bull, hoping the cold, sugar, and caffeine might actually give me wings. From there, the route led down Kessler’s Mill greenway, to the Roanoke River Greenway, and to Mill Mountain.

Shortly after leaving the Orange Market, a text notification popped up on my Garmin that almost made me cry: “Kill it girl. Super proud of you.” Though I’d had my phone on airplane mode to preserve battery life most of the ride, I had left it on since starting North Mountain, knowing I’d have enough battery to at least get home. The overwhelming number of encouraging messages that flooded in throughout my ride, which I’d see in the moments where I did stop and check my phone briefly, was incredible. I hadn’t posted much about Rockstar, as I hadn’t been planning to race it. I had shared the tracking link mostly because I wasn’t sure how far I’d even make it, and because it seemed like the thing to do. So–if you messaged me, no, I probably didn’t respond, but yes, I saw it, and THANK YOU.

Then, as I got closer, a coworker at Cardinal rolled up on his mountain bike to follow me in, then others came out along the course to give me fist bumps and cheer me on. I also occasionally got glimpses of notifications on my watch from the Riveter’s MTB group chat, where the ladies were dot-watching and planning to meet me at the Star. I was pretty broken by this point, struggling to put any weight at all on my left leg, and mentally rehearsing the miles and trails to get me to the finish, but it was cool to see friends along the way.

When I finally made it to Texas Tavern, I rolled around the corner and was shocked to see that there was an entire group of people waiting to welcome me. If I’d have had any emotion at all left, I would have cried. As it was, I kind of just stood there. Even the obligatory Texas Tavern cheesy western didn’t breathe much life into me. I just wanted a shower and sleep and to not touch my bicycle again for a hot minute. But still, if you showed up yesterday, THANK YOU. That was really, really cool–even if I didn’t have the words or feelings to express that in the moment.

In the end, I won the overall for the 2025 Rockstar Trail Grand Depart, as well as setting a new women’s FKT by 8h58m (reducing it to 58h45m), and really, I credit it all to the power of staying curious and just asking “what could happen if…?”

Also, I never would have finished without Cameron’s encouragement and advice and loaned gear. One Rockstar begets another Rockstar? Something like that… 😉